


A Change of Heart (Is Not Easy To Make)

by Tkhan0



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Might be slight oumasai, Rating is just in case, oh hey forgot to mention that the ships listed might be a bit onesided lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-22 12:24:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13166862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tkhan0/pseuds/Tkhan0
Summary: She doesn’t think anything Kokichi could say would convince her he doesn’t deserve to die right here, right now, by her hands.But Kaito has other plans.Or: What would it take for Maki to reconsider killing Kokichi?But even if she is willing to let the little punk live, has she changed her mind too late?





	A Change of Heart (Is Not Easy To Make)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Ringing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13090125) by [PsiFie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PsiFie/pseuds/PsiFie). 



> (I suck at titling so please just take this already I've been staring at this completed draft trying to think of a suitable title for an embarrassingly long time.)
> 
> I heard people demanding more chapter 5 AUs and I have answered. What? You’re saying that was just me? Oh well.
> 
> I’ve had this particular scenario in my head for a while but I didn’t know how to approach it. But I’ve just been reading-and loving- Ringing by PsiFie and I got inspired so uhhh the execution might be a bit (read: a lot) similar. 
> 
> (No wait- please don’t go- it’s still different, I promise)

Whether they’d believe it or not, Kaito and Kokichi actually have a lot in common. They both have taken a liking to Shuichi, they both hate sitting around doing nothing, but most importantly they both hate the killing game and would rather not continue it- if only that were an option.

So that’s why when Kokichi walks into the hangar bathroom and sees the crossbow aimed at him- as much as it has the potential to disrupt his plans- he can’t help but look amused as Kaito tries to appear threatening.

“What’s this? Where did Kaito get a gun from, hmmm? Neeheehee, I gotta admit that’s pretty bold of you Kaito! But you’re a bad liar. I know you’d never kill me!”

“S-shut up, I could totally kill you!”

“I don’t think you can. I’m the mastermind remember? I control everything. Whatever you’re about to do is pointless-“

“SHUT UP!” Kaito doesn’t let him finish, firing the crossbow into his arm.

“Augh!” Kokichi lets out a pained yelp before he’s tackled out the door by Kaito. They tussle on the floor as Kokichi tries to push Kaito off so he can take out his remote and get things under control again.

Just as Kokichi had managed to get Kaito off of him long enough to get up, they both freeze at the sound of the Hangar door opening behind them. They turn to the source of the sound and an exisal appears before them.

“What?! How did you?!” Kaito asks wide-eyed.

“I-I didn’t order that one to come in…” Kokichi’s face mirrors Kaito’s, clearly just as confused.

The exisal lumbers towards them and dread builds in both of them before the lid opens and the mystery visitor is revealed.

“Maki Roll?!”

Kokichi doesn’t say anything because he’s too busy panicking at his sudden loss of control over everything. _Shit shit SHIT_ he screams internally as he tries to whip out the remote for the exisals so he can gain some leverage in what has just went from a manageable situation at best to a complete train wreck.

Tries being the keyword, because he doesn’t get too far before Maki is jumping out the exisal and aiming another crossbow at him. The arrow connects with his exposed back just as he’s about to use the remote, and down he goes, along with his chance to gain control of the situation.

Somewhere off to the side Kaito’s mouth is agape and he’s rooted to the place in pure shock as Maki calmly walks up to Kokichi knowing she’s got him where she wants him now.

“You’re going to answer my questions now.” She says in an adequately menacing tone, barely controlled anger rolling off her in waves- she won’t have any of his usual shit.

“How did the Remnants of Despair set up this game and why did you participate in it? As their leader, I’m sure you could’ve stayed hidden this whole time, just like Junko did.”

“Remnants of…Despair? What… are you talking… about? I don’t… understand…” He didn’t remember finding anything about some organization called the Remnants of Despair, or anything about who set up this game in his investigations. He tries to subtly look towards Kaito for confirmation- maybe this was something he had missed while he was hiding from everyone? But Kaito’s just as confused as him at this line of questioning. He tries diverting her attention instead- to a question he badly needs the answer too. “But anyway… Why did you do this Maki? I already told you all... that the killing game is over… and that it’s pointless to continue… if you kill me here you’ll get executed and the game will continue…  Do you… really want that… for your friends?”

“If I kill you here that’ll end the game wont it? You fucking asshole!”

“Haha… D-do you really… b-believe… that the mastermind wouldn’t be prepared… for their own d-death… in a killing game?” It’s getting harder to talk but he doesn’t really have a choice does he?

“…What do you mean? Your answer better satisfy me if you don’t want another arrow to the face. I'm sure you're feeling the effects by now, but you should know that arrow was laced with poison, so you don’t have enough time for your usual tricks and games."

At the mention of poison Kaito's face turns ten shades paler and he feels sick to the stomach. "Maki Roll, no! You can't! I won't allow you to kill anyone!"

"He's the mastermind, Kaito, he doesn't deser-"

"It doesn’t matter what he is! You were just getting over your past… Did…” He hesitates, a pained expression on his face. “Did all that training mean nothing to you?”

Kokichi hopes that the emotional outburst and the clear tension between Kaito and Maki is enough for her to break her attention and focus on trying to explain herself to Kaito, but as if to confirm Kaito’s question just now she stays true to form as an assassin, not taking her eyes or aim off Kokichi for a second, her face showing no indication she had even heard the question. Still, even she can’t hide how tight her voice is when she responds.

“Kaito… there’s more to it than that… He’s the one behind all our suffering. He’s the one who made Gonta a killer. He’s… the one who took you away from us.” She says the last part quieter than the rest, and with less conviction, embarrassed to have revealed a bit of her true emotions while on a job. “Don’t try to stop me, there’s nothing you can do now anyway, not without the antido-“

Kaito didn’t let her finish and was sprinting out the hangar before they could process it. Maki could guess where he was headed. She’d worry about him later; as long as he was alive it didn’t matter. If she needed to she’d finish Kokichi off before he got back. She didn’t think anything Kokichi could say would convince her he didn’t deserve to die right here and now by her hands anyway.

“Now.” She said finger tensing on the trigger, and suddenly Kokichi was very much afraid for his life, now that the only person between him and Maki had sprinted out of the hangar like his life depended on it. If he wasn’t going to die by his plan there was no point in dying. “Explain yourself.”

There was no mistaking the determination in her eyes; she would not hesitate to end his life if his answers didn’t satisfy her. Kokichi was practically sweating bullets, though he supposed part of that could be attributed to the poison. He couldn’t stop himself from audibly gulping under her steely gaze. He knew the ultimate assassin wouldn’t be able to change their true nature so easily.

The thought makes him angry, stupid Maki! Showing up out of nowhere and ruining his plans- this had to be the work of that damn mastermind! And she was just too _dense_ to realize it. His insides are burning now and he can’t tell if it’s his overwhelming fury or his soon-to-be-failing-organs. He gets a sudden burst of energy from the raw anger flowing through him and snaps. “Don’t you get it?! The rules say this killing game will continue until there's two spotless or one blackened! The rules won’t change just because I died! If you kill me here you'll just be continuing the game!"

Maki is also seething at this point, a look of pure contempt in her eyes that chills his blood despite the poison slowly circulating through it. "But what about your precious Junko Enoshima?! The first mutual killing game ended when she died, why wouldn't you set it up the same way?" 

He wants to bang his head against the floor because _he. does. not. understand_. He doesn’t get a single thing she’s asking him and says as much. “I ALREADY TOLD YOU! I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT!” and even though he should be more careful, right now he doesn’t care if it’s potentially revealing information because he’s been gone for less than 3 days and they’ve already come to some sort of conclusion- which apparently involves him no less- with people and events he’s never even heard of and he _really_ hates being put at a disadvantage like this.

Maki’s eyebrow twitches in barely controlled rage now, and he thinks she might really end his life now because of that outburst, which is ironic considering he had only told her what she wanted- the truth. But he knew she wouldn’t believe a liar like him- which almost makes him question why she’d bother interrogating him in the first place, rather than just kill him if she thought it’d end the game. Regardless, he knows he still has a chance to get out of this if he can calm down and stall for time long enough for Kaito to come back and restrain his dumb girlfriend- she’s been just a smidge more hesitant since his outburst, so there’s a chance she’ll rethink killing him and he can live long enough to come up with yet _another_ fucking plan.

But if she’s reconsidering killing him she’s doing an amazing job hiding it. She closes the distance between them and all but shoves the crossbow in his face. “Tell. Me. The. Truth. _Now_.”

Welp, time to do what he does best; lie. “Okay, okay, g-geez. But what does Maki want to know about, hmmm? The first mutual killing game?” Did they learn something about the killing game Rantaro had participated in? He thought only he had even known about that video. He decides to bluff “If you’re talking about the last killing game that Rantaro participated in, you’ve got it all wrong; I orchestrated that too. It was a test run for this killing game- the one that would pit humanity’s last hopes against each other! That Junko chick was just a red herring.” He doesn’t know who the hell Junko Enoshima is but Maki claims the killing game ended when she died so he goes with it. “Of course my dear Rantaro and I made it to the end and I gave him a perk for surviving. Neeheehee, how unfortunate it is that he was still the first to go!” He’s not sure how much of that is true of the real mastermind, and if any of it corroborates with whatever Maki and the others “learned.” He’s also not sure what Rantaro’s survivor perk was, or if any of them have realized the world as they know it might not be the full truth and that there is almost certainly people out there somewhere watching this, so this lie is his safest bet.

One thing he is sure of, though, is that he probably shouldn’t have wasted so much of his breath talking- the energy from earlier has dissipated and he’s wheezing after his long winded explanation. He’s already crouched on the ground but he’s pretty sure any minute now he’ll just collapse the rest of the short distance onto the floor.

Suddenly he finds the distance between him and the floor growing again, as Maki grabs a fistful of his hair and yanks him up into a half-standing position. “You don’t get to pass out after spouting that confusing crap.” Her tone is harsh on his ears and a wave of nausea hits him as she lifts him. “Rantaro was in the first killing game? Junko wasn’t the mastermind- you were? You’re making this up as you go! If you value your pathetic life, tell me the truth!”

He doesn’t have anything else to go off of, and thinking of any kind is immensely difficult now, especially after she denied what he had assumed had to be true- that Rantaro was in the first killing game. With nothing else to add, he tries to sound as convincing as possible. “B-but I’ve… already… t-told you… the t-truth…” It was technically true, however, this response infuriates her.

He can feel the deadly aura rolling off her before she launches him a few feet backwards by the hair she had been holding. He lands on his back, and the force snaps the arrow underneath him causing it to painfully dig deeper into his skin. His world goes black for a moment as a shockwave of pain ripples through him and an unearthly wail is ripped from his mouth. He’s left shuddering on the floor that he’s now almost certain will be the last one he sees as she stares at him impassively. She makes no move to help him, but also no move to hurt him either. Maybe she’s content to just watch the life slowly fade from his body? Or maybe she just doesn’t want to bother with him anymore because she didn’t get the answers she wanted.

Eventually, after what feels like hours- but was probably only a couple minutes- she walks over to him and leans over to look him in the eyes. She’s silent for a long moment before she finally speaks up. “…Personally I think you should rot in hell, and deserve to die this slow and painful death. But… I’m a better person than you, and I value the changes I’ve tried to make here at this hellhole of an academy. So I won’t interfere from this point on. But if you _do_ somehow survive this, I promise you I _will_ get the answers I’m looking for- one way or another.”

 _Well that’s fine then_ , he thinks deliriously, _because I’m already dead_. She turns to face away from him and walks a couple feet away, deciding to wait for Kaito to show up and let him do whatever he wants. Something doesn’t line up with the way Kokichi had been answering her, there are certain things he said with absolute certainty, almost as if _he_ believes his own bs. All that stuff about Rantaro was a bit too random for even him to throw in. He knows something they don’t, that’s for sure.

Just as the world is going dark around the edges and he’s losing track of his senses, the sound of sets of feet pounding across the floor can be heard- though everything sounds extremely far away in Kokichi’s mind.

“K-Kokichi!” And Kokichi knows he must be hallucinating if he thinks he’s hearing Shuichi’s voice, no less him sounding _that_ concerned when saying _his_ name. 

“M-Maki Roll, you didn’t…?” Kaito’s voice quivers as he asks the dreaded question.

“Don’t worry he’s not dead… yet.” She replies to his momentary relief, before he and Shuichi realize they’re cutting it too close.

Kokichi feels a set of hands push him into a sitting up position but his vision is too blurred to really make out who. The world is spinning despite the fact that he’s not actually the one sitting up, but rather being held up. The urge to close his eyes and just… shut it all out and drift off… gets more enticing every minute. Judging by the way he can just barely hear their breaths catch in their mouths, and the way the hands still propping him up tense, the arrow wound on his back must not look good.

The person beside him not holding him up shifts and a click can be heard of what Kokichi assumes is a first aid kit. “This is gonna be difficult…” he thinks he hears Shuichi say and the person begins to take out some materials he still can’t quite make out.

Everything that comes after is a blur and he can’t really comprehend what’s going on. One of the people is doing something to his arm and the other person is messing with the jacket on his back and then suddenly both areas are exposed and he can feel the air on his skin. Then someone is lightly but firmly holding him in place by the shoulders and he doesn’t know why until he feels searing pain in his back that makes him want to scream. His mouth feels like it’s wired shut though, and his tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth, so all that comes out is a strangled noise that emanates from his throat. It takes them awhile to remove the arrow, given the shaft had snapped, but they finish up and start thoroughly cleaning and bandaging the area.

Kaito doesn’t want to think about the arrow he shot into Kokichi’s arm because watching Maki jump out of an exisal and use the same crossbow on him makes him regret not trying to use a less painful method, and he didn’t expect he’d have to deal with the results of that action so soon. He really didn’t want to be the one to remove it, but he didn’t exactly have time to get the others when he went and practically dragged Shuichi to his lab to find out which poison Maki used so they could grab the antidote. He doesn’t want to linger on it any longer, so he braces himself and removes the arrow in one fluid motion and Shuichi begins clumsily applying a bandage to the best of his abilities.

Kaito is pretty nervous that they may already be too late at this point because Kokichi’s eyes are glazed over-practically devoid of life- and half-lidded and they really freak him out and he just wants the boy to _stop looking so far gone_. He’d take the maniacal laughing and evil grins, and the endless stream of lies that tumbled from his mouth over this- anything that’d make the boy seem more alive and less like a porcelain doll. It doesn’t help that the boy is incredibly small and trembling under his grip. 

Shuichi is trembling slightly as well as he opens the bottle for the antidote and removes the safety lid. All that’s left for them to do before they can plan where they go from here is give Kokichi the antidote, but he’s not even sure the boy is lucid enough to drink it. What if he spills it? What if Kokichi spits it back out? What if he chokes on it? If they don’t get this right another of their classmates is going to die a death that they could’ve prevented.

(He doesn’t even want to begin to think about the class trial and inevitable execution that could follow so he doesn’t.)

Right, Kokichi’s going to die if he doesn’t drink this so Shuichi needs to calm down. Though the thought doesn’t make him feel much calmer, it does help him focus. “Kaito, hold him still, I have to see if I can talk to him first.” He waves his hand in Kokichi’s face slowly to see if his eyes can still track the motion, and is relieved when Kokichi at least manages that. “Hey, Kokichi, if you can hear me, can you nod yes?” There’s a delay as he takes a moment to process the request, but he complies. “We’re gonna need you to drink this,” Shuichi holds the bottle in front of Kokichi’s eyes. “So please try to finish all of it? Is that alright with you?” Shuichi doesn’t know what they would’ve done if he had said no, but thankfully there’s a slow nod to show that Kokichi at least understands what he needs to do.

Kokichi doesn’t really like the idea of drinking anything at all, but the way Shuichi asks so nicely makes him want to do whatever will make him happy. He takes a minute- and a lot of effort- to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth and opens it just a bit. He feels the bottle placed up to his lips and carefully tipped back slowly, and he takes longer than anyone would like to swallow it bit by bit, but eventually the bottle is empty and he can stop concentrating as he’s slowly lowered back to the ground and Shuichi and Kaito collectively let out a sigh of relief.

“Thank you for cooperating with us, Kokichi.” Kokichi doesn’t really know why he had to do that or why Shuichi is thanking him but it sounds so nice to hear Shuichi talking to him like he’s a normal person for once that he can’t help but smile. The ground is much colder now that most of his jacket has been removed but he can’t really bring himself to care as he once again finds himself drifting off. It had taken a lot of energy to stay awake but hearing Shuichi’s voice- whether it was a hallucination or not, because he still hadn’t figured that part out yet- had compelled him to try and listen. But now he didn’t try to fight off the growing heaviness of his eyelids, feeling rather content for reasons he couldn’t fully comprehend. He’d try to make sense of things later, unless… Was he dead and this is the afterlife? But that didn’t make much sense. But then again nothing did, so maybe he was still dying? Well if he didn’t wake up from this, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to let things end like this…

His train of thought ends there as he goes under.

“Shit- is he breathing?!” Kaito and Shuichi are brought back to the reality of the situation as Kokichi becomes unresponsive and Shuichi checks for a pulse. It’s faint and irregular, and his breathing is shallow but the pulse is there, and he can only hope that means they stopped it in time. “I-I think he’ll be fine if we watch him…” He says only because he wants it to be true.

And then Kaito asks the question on everyone’s minds. “So what do we do now?” And Shuichi is silent, if only because he honestly doesn’t know. Maki, who had been standing off to the side the whole time has joined them but remains silent, observing everything carefully.

“Well, I think if we don’t want a dead body on our hands we need to move Kokichi to someplace safe where we can make sure he recovers and doesn’t have any permanent injuries.” Shuichi _really_ doesn’t want to think about that- none of them are trained medical professionals and he doesn’t know how they’d handle it if Kokichi ended up having permanent brain damage or something. He also still needs answers to a lot of questions that he’s sure the boy holds some answers to. “We’ll also be able to keep an eye on him that way, but I don’t think we have to worry about him trying anything for a while…”

Maki thinks they shouldn’t underestimate the little bastard, but she doesn’t object. “I searched his jacket pockets when you two removed most of it.” She speaks up for the first time since she told them he wasn’t quite dead. “He had the key to his room, a pocketknife, and a red notebook on him.” Honestly she was expecting a bit more from the mastermind of the game, but she supposes he didn’t get there by being an idiot. “The remote for the exisals is broken now, so at least we don’t have to worry about that.” She hands the items to Shuichi and heads towards the exit, planning on going back to her room now that she’s seen Kaito okay and failed her mission.

“Maki, w-wait!” She stops but she doesn’t turn around to face Shuichi. “Why… did you do this?” He had been caught up in the heat of the moment earlier but he had been planning on asking her the moment he got a chance. “Why did you do this when we already had a plan?”

“No reason really. I just didn’t see any good coming out of letting him live and I knew you guys wouldn’t allow for that.” She’s never been one for dancing around the truth, but she won’t admit there’s more to it than that. It was mostly true anyway. “Looks like I failed on that end as well.” She’s silent for a moment before she turns back toward the exit. “Whatever, I’m not going to get in your guys’ way anymore. Do whatever you want.” And she’s gone before they get a chance to say anything in response.

Shuichi looks at the items in his hands. He’s glad they have the key to the boy’s room; that’ll make things much easier on them. But he’s also very curious about the red notebook they’ve found. For as long as they’ve known Kokichi Oma he’s been nothing but an enigma, and several times he’s caught himself wishing he could have an inside look at his thought process. Now it seems like the perfect opportunity has fallen right into his hands.

But he can’t focus on that now, they aren’t in the clear yet, and judging by how long it took them to finish up here, they might have their work cut out for them. They’ll have to catch everyone up on the situation tomorrow.

“Alright, Kaito, help me pick him up. We’ll take him to his room- all his spare outfits are there, and if he wakes up he’ll probably be less panicked at being in his bedroom than anywhere else. I don’t think we should leave him alone though.”

“Yea… you’re probably right.” Kaito has to reluctantly agree, death by poison is an awful way to go, he figures, if it’s anything like his illness. He almost pities the little brat. _Almost_. Really, he doesn’t want to wake up to find all their efforts were for nothing.

Shuichi expects carrying Kokichi all the way to his room on the second floor to be extremely difficult, but to his surprise the boy is fairly light and easy to carry. He almost wonders if maybe he could’ve done it himself if he tried to carry the boy on his back, but he’s thankful Kaito is there to share the load.

Once they set him down on the bed they take a moment to observe the chaotic state of his room. Boxes and papers everywhere, random objects-that on closer inspection turn out to be evidence from the previous trial- strewn all over the place, the freaking wax statue of Rantaro. He even rolled a giant whiteboard in. Nothing about this clues them into Kokichi’s thought process, so they won’t get anywhere without closer investigation, but they really should save that for another day. Even if it’s Kokichi, Shuichi feels wrong entering and rifling around in someone else’s room without their permission. Not that they could’ve asked for his permission, even if he was up, he likely wouldn’t have been able to give them an answer.

They go about removing the rest of the torn jacket and find a new outfit in his closet. The jacket was far more complicated than it had any right to be. Luckily they find a plain white night shirt to change him into.

After everything is settled Shuichi brings a jug of water and some pain pills, not sure what else they might need throughout the night. They keep the first aid kit on standby.

“You should get some rest; we’ll probably need to take turns keeping watch over him. I’ll take first shift.” Shuichi volunteers to take first shift because he’s afraid of leaving Kokichi alone so soon after all that happened. He wants to be in the room if something happens in the middle of the night. Besides, it’ll give him time to do some medical research so they can be prepared for the next couple of days, which are sure to be chaotic.

“Alright, if ya say so, Shuichi. Don’t try to take on everything by yourself though; you can wake me up if you need me, okay?”

“Yea, I will. Thanks Kaito. It’s good to have you back.” And for the first time since he was awoken he can genuinely smile at the thought.

Kaito leaves for the night and Shuichi grabs a book he brought from the library when he went to get the supplies earlier. He really wants to investigate Kokichi’s room, and his detective instincts are working overtime, telling him that the things in this room don’t add up with what they know about Kokichi, but he won’t indulge in that just yet. He’s already infringing his classmate’s privacy by being here uninvited. The least he can do if keep himself from snooping around. There would be no point to it anyways if Kokichi doesn’t wake up.

That’s a possibility that they really do need to avoid at all costs. He has yet to look at the red notebook, but he’s certain he’s bound to have even more questions to ask the boy after reading it.

There’s also the problem of Maki. What’s her endgame? There had to be some reason she suddenly decided she no longer cared if Kokichi didn’t die. He’d have to question her later about what all Kokichi said after Kaito had left.

 _Yup_ he thinks to himself, _I have my work cut out for me this next couple of days._

But for now he relaxes, knowing it could’ve been much worse.

**Author's Note:**

> I really really liked writing this one ok don’t judge me, I know I don’t have my own distinct writing style yet. Too bad I don’t really know how to continue it. Sorry if anyone was ooc, I havent written Maki before so this was some practice.
> 
> Probably not at all medically accurate, cause there’s not a lot of readily available info (at least not that I could find- all the really cool medical docs were locked behind a paywall) on the side effects of delaying an antidote when someone is purposely injected with a lethal poison. Like I imagine if your body is already shutting down organs it’s too late but where is the line drawn? What exactly is the line between “cutting it close” and “too late?” Does a person need any extra treatment if they cut it close? I tried to figure that out while writing this, but I mean for the most part I was just as clueless as the characters here lmao.


End file.
